Russia claims reaching administrative borders of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region

By Ali Cura

MOSCOW (AA) - Russia claimed on Tuesday that its army reached the administrative borders of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region, taking control of the city of Popasna.

In a statement on Russia's war on Ukraine, the country’s military spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russian military units and the forces of the so-called Luhansk People's Republic took control of the Popasna settlement.

The defense of the Ukrainian forces was deeply broken and the Russian forces reached the Luhansk administrative border, he added.

Also, Russia's air combat tactical units destroyed 16 areas where Ukrainian military units and technical vehicles were deployed, Konashenkov said.

A total of 33 command centers of missile and artillery units, an area where 407 military units and technical vehicles were located, five ammunition and fuel depots, and nearly 380 nationalist armed forces were destroyed in the Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, he also said.

The Russian forces also destroyed 13 military technical vehicles, 12 cars, and nearly 120 nationalist forces, Konashenkov noted.

A Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jet was shot down in the Kharkiv region on Monday evening, he said, adding that the Russian air defense systems destroyed three unmanned aerial vehicles in the vicinity of Donetsk and Odesa.

Since the beginning of the war, Ukraine's 163 aircraft and 124 helicopters, 793 unmanned aerial vehicles, 2,979 tanks and various armored vehicles, 351 multi-barrel rocket launchers, 1,440 howitzers and mortars, along with 2,789 private military vehicles have been destroyed, said the military spokesman.